Education for health care providers: developmental assessment

I used to work for Children’s Hospital in the IMU unit. Many times, we as nurses would encounter many genetic disorders that were foreign to us or we just did not know enough about the disorder to help educate their parents. Since I also took classes in genetics, I found myself digging further into a particular website OMIM. This website was extremely useful in providing information on genetic diseases and compiled all the information and studies on each genetic problem. This was useful because if children were not reaching their physical or emotional development, many times this was addressed within the study and what was “normal” for that disease process. Many families were at a loss and just did not understand the disease process. The Internet was extremely useful in educating parents and myself regarding the physical and emotional assessment of their child. Also we could print out valuable information and documentation to explain to parents with diagrams and help teach parents about the disorder and what they could expect in the future. I found the Internet to be extremely helpful in ways that books could not.